"WASHINGTON — The federal government isn't fully prepared to handle a nuclear terrorist attack or large-scale natural catastrophe, lacking effective coordination, and in some cases is years away from ensuring adequate emergency shelter and medical treatment, congressional investigators have found."

Three major electric utilities want the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) to make ratepayers pay for aging and unprofitable coal and nuclear generation plants in that state. But the ratepayers — the utilities claim — aren't entitled to know whether they might be ripped off.

"Federal regulators have been too slow and lax when it comes to ensuring the safety of California's last operating nuclear plant, according to Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who clashed repeatedly with members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during a Senate committee hearing Wednesday."

Journalists hurrying to get up to speed on environmental or energy issues can get objective background from reports by the Congressional Research Service (an arm of the Library of Congress), which does not release them to the taxpaying public that funded them. We thank the Federation of American Scientists' Government Secrecy Project for publishing them.

"The American mining industry is asking a federal appeals court to overturn a ban on new uranium mining claims near the Grand Canyon in a legal battle with environmentalists over impacts on the premier U.S. park."